Do you know what this is?

http://www.movingsight.com/chugoku/kyushu.1996.0906/96906452.jpg

I won't write much about it. I saw it going through old issues of National Geographics from the 1960s, and I was reminded. This structure, the pictures of it, always bring chills for me. If there were anything that could rival the concentration camps for disregaurd of human life, this is it. In a second, everyone within this building was dead. In all, I've heard an estimated 30,000 died that day, and by the end of the year, between 80,000 and 120,000 were dead. Thoughts, anybody?

While I'm not sure what building it is, the building looks oddly familiar.

The atomic bomb building or dome or something like that.

If that's right or close to right I read somewhere that approx. 75,000 died that day and about the same amount were injured. If it's not right it's still a terrible thing.

It was Hiroshima's Industry Exhibition Complex, known today simply as the "Atomic Dome" It was one of the few buildings at the cities center that survived the explosion. In fact, it was almost directly below the blast.
For years it stood after the bomb, in 1966 the city decided to preserve the site. It's a reminder of why nuclear weapons should never be used again.

That's what I was thinking it might be. Yea everytime I see a picture or watch something on tv about the atomic bomb I get chills. It almost takes my breathe way(in a bad way).

I recognized the building. It reminds me that my uncles body is still in the Arizona.

I too had relatives die in the war, they were in the army, and in the navy. They were not civillians. They were not women and children.
I do not know how exactly they died. I can be pretty sure though, that they did not die the painful, drawn out death of radiation poisoning, they were not carbonized by intense heat, their children did not die from cancer or luekemia. I do know that.
And I do know (in the case of my U.S. family) that when they were done, they actually had something to come back to.

I am guessing you are leading up to America is evil or something like that right?

I am leading up to no such thing at all! It doesn't matter who dropped the bombs. Because Hitler was German, I do not blame Germany. Because the bombs came from America, I do not blame all America for it. All that matters is that it never happens again. It was easily, the darkest, and most horrific event in human history.

Ok.....Sorry about that. I was just going on a hunch.
Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong.

Well, If we didn't drop the Bomb, we would have to have invaded... projections estimated a million american casualties, and we all know it would've been more.
So... would you have dropped the bomb??

Yeah, but would they have been civilian casualties? I'm sorry, but it probably would've been better to invade than to drop two massive nuclear bombs on two cities. I don't know what I would've done honestly, so I can't answer you that, but I can say I don't think nuclear warfare is the best answer in any situation.

So... would you have dropped the bomb??

Yup.

Would I pretend for one second that what I had just done was the right thing to do? That all those innocent men, women and children that I had just MURDERED were a small price to pay?

Nope.

Oh and a million American war dead? That all? *points to the Eastern front*

I'm not sure that at the time we dropped the bombs we fully understood the destruction it was going to cause. I'm sure we knew it was going to be big but did we know it was going to be that big? Notice no one has done anything like that since then. Hopefully we all have learned from it.

There would have surely been massive civillian casualties if we would have invaded. There is always civilian casualities in war. Think about all the civilian casualities that happened before we dropped the bomb.

I meant if we invaded Japan, Truman made a choice, a million or more sons of America, or a hundred thousand or so of our enemy's civilians.

The projected #'s were far off from any actual fatalaties that may have occured, had we not dropped the bomb. Millions?, be realistic.

Nothing justifies the A-bomb, especially its use on civilians. The TWO targets were intentional, as they would have more of an emotional impact on the morale of the Japanese, than military targets. Hell, I forgot who it was but I think it was General Macarthur who wanted to invade anyway because he was that confident of his skills. Again, let me stress TWICE the A-bomb had to be used, and Japan was already on the verge of surrendering, after having nearly all of their naval fleet annhilated by Bombers. America's only reason to use both bombs was in case one of those was a dud. America's #1 reason to use the bomb would be all the money put into developing that shit. The war was already over, and all the time/$$$/effort invested, America wanted to get its money's worth.

Oh, and American Military Intelligence intercepted some radio messages and reported an increase in radio activity the day Pearl Harbor was hit. Japan would not surrender unconditionally (simply denouncing their Emperor) to America's terms, and so they hit us. That's capitalism for you.

Don't get me wrong, I respect our country's servicemen and each side of a war has committed their atrocities... even the "good" guys gotta play dirty sometimes.

Bloke - I'll grant you that we all wish no pain and misary upon anyone regardless of their civilian vs military status. (aside from rapists and murderers, but thats another discussion)

The following is not for rationalization. I believe dropping the bombs on Japan was the right. The following is some things people may not know.

I will submit that while surely many of the people caught in the bomb were 'innocent' there were a great many who were not so civilian as claimed. As the war was coming to closer to an end, every man and woman in Japan was being trained to defend the country with whatever weapon they had on hand. Guns, knives, pitch forks. They were going to fight to the death for their emporer.

Japan had murdered over 20 million in China and Korea. Rapes, tortures and brutal slayings were the order of the day. Everyone knows about what the Nazis in Europe did in those concentration camps, but many do not know of the horrors inflicted in Asia by the Japanese (or by Stalin as well).

Pain and misary comes in many guises - via radiation or a butchers blade. I cannot say which is worse because the distinction is meaningless. It is sad that so many died a horrific death to end such a bloody war. I hope it does serve as a reminder that not only should the bombs be avoided, but also serves as a reminder to anyone who thinks that sujegation and genocide against their neighbors is theirs for the choosing that they too can be obliterated.

Cause and effect.

I have to agree, though the Specific people hit w/ the bomb were inded innocent, Japan in her greed started the War, and you know what... that is the price of war. I'm glad Japanese civilians died rather than my Grandfather in the invaision. You cannot say there was no justification for droping the bomb.. that is WAR. And Japan was not condiering surrender til after the second bomb, hence Y y used two.
On a side note, America is not w/o her flaws, and a hidden reason for the dropping of the bomb was a demonstration of our power to the Russians, this I can admit.

Japan in her greed started the War,

Yeah... There is a lesson in there somewhere...

Japan had murdered over 20 million in China and Korea.
Not to say that there was anything right about murdering millions, but Korea was already under Japan's rule more than two decades before Germany started WWII, and was in China before then as well (though not as early as Korea) You make it sound as though suddenly when the "world war" started, Japan was suddenly engaged on an all out killing spree all over Asia.
I think that the most saddening thing about all of it, is that even though Japan was forced out, there are still labor and reform camps, and still "mass murder" going on in some of the places Japan occupied.
And yet, of what relevance is it? What justification is it? The civillians who were murdered in Hiroshima were not the ones invading or running the camps.
The only thing it proves in that war is stupid.

Trust me Bloke - I am not trying to insinuate anything with the numbers I've posted. I use them only to show that brutality comes in many guises. Nuclear bomb or a sadistic conquerer; either way people are going to suffer.


Along the lines of brutality http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/wwii.html

Mass murder was not a German exclusive: The German invasion of France in 1940 caused minimal destruction to historical buildings and few civilian casualties, but the Allied invasion of Germany killed about one million German civilians and destroyed thousands of monuments The German blitz on Britain of 1939-40 killed 40,000 civilians, but the Allied bombing offensive of 1943-45 killed about 500,000 German civilians (British concentrated on night-time carpet bombing of German cities, which killed mostly civilians, whereas Americans concentrated on daytime bombing of industrial and military targets) Throughout the war, Stalin continued the purges he had begun in the 1930s, killing dissidents at the rate of one million per year (Robert Conquest's estimate, largely confirmed by the secret archives opened after the fall of the Soviet Union). Needless to say, the countries that were "liberated" by the Soviet Union were not any better off after the war than they had been during the German occupation: many more Polish, Czech and Hungarian citizens were killed by the communist regimes than had been killed by the pro-Hitler regimes. The Soviet Union lost 25 million people during the war, of which nine million were soldiers and 16 million were civilians; but that includes Russian civilians "as well as" non-Russian civilians of the other Soviet republics. Statistics tend to count the people killed by the Soviet Union inside the borders of the Soviet Union (i.e., Ukrainians, Lithuanians, etc) as if they had been killed by Hitler's troops, when they were in fact many of them were killed by Stalin's troops. For example, Ukraine (technically, a republic of the Soviet Union) suffered the greatest loss of human lives in the entire Europe (six million soldiers, four million civilians and 600,000 Jews), but many of them were killed by the Soviet army not by the German army. Both the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Galicia Division (or Divizia) fought against both Hitler and Stalin: they are all counted as "Soviet casualties" of the war. Another country that got away relatively easily from its war crimes is Japan. If one counts civilian casualties only, Japan's invasions were far more brutal than Germany's invasions. They killed, enslaved and raped millions of civilians. Japan was the only country to use chemical weapons, and it pioneered biological warfare by dropping plague, cholera and anthrax germs on Chinese villages. The number of people submitted to medical experiments in Japan's secret labs is much higher than the number of German prisoners who suffered the same fate. Nobody will ever know the number of "sex slaves" who were used (probably more than one million) and who died (sources say up to 90%). Prisoners of war in German camps were not mistreated (only 1% died) but prisoners of war in Japanese camps were used as slave labourers (and 31% died). If one includes China and all the occupied countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc), Japan caused the death of about 12 million civilians, far more than those caused by Germany.Sharing the Responsibility: Japan's holocausts

13/12/1937 - 3/1938: Rape of Nanking or "Nanjing Datusha" (369,366 Chinese killed, and 80,000 women raped) 18/4/1942: 250,000 Chinese civilians murdered in retaliation for Chinese help to USA airmen 23/12/1943 - 14/2/1944: Rape of Manila (all male Filipinos 14 and older condemmed to die, 100,000 killed) 1937-45: Forced prostitution or "jugun ianfu" (400,000 Chinese women, 250,000 Korean women, 90% death rate, largest and most deadly mass rape recorded in history) 1933: Shiro Ishii'ss medical experiments in Manchuria (victims vivisected while still alive) Only nation that used biological weapons in WW II 1939: Shiro Ishii's biological experiments in Harbin, China (10,000 prisoners died) 1940: Air bombing of Chinese villages with germs of bubonic plague (october 1940, Quzhou), cholera (1940, Yunnan), anthrax, etc (200,000 die) Only nation that used chemical weapons in WW II POW camps 10 million Asians were used as slaves and only 5,000 or so survivors may still be alive. Death rate in Japanese prisoner camps: 38.2 % 25/4/1943-6/44: 16,000 PoWs and 80,000 Asian slave labourers died constructing the Thai-Burma railway Japan is responsible for the casualties of more than 20 millions in Asia


In the case of Japan, the end came brutally swift. And as another FYI, Tokyo suffered more casualties and destruction by the firebombing then Hiroshima and Nagasaki did combined. Yet, that didn't convince Japan to surrender. They were fighting to the last man. No surrender in sight with tens of thousands being killed weekly.

Another decent read http://www.etext.org/Politics/Progressive.Sociologists/authors/Selden.Mark/Before-the-bomb-the-good-war-air-power-and-the-logic-of-mass-destruction.95feb

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As for war being stupid - thats another topic for discussion. Defending ones self or principles is not stupid. Tragic perhaps, but not stupid. There would be no war if everyone just laid down and bowed to the conquerers like Hitler, Tojo, Musilini etc.

Tokyo's bombing took place over a long period of time, compared to that of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. That one could kill so many people in so little time is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the nuclear bombings.
It is also that Japan's war criminals were let off the hook relatively easily, that seems to make the murder of so many civilians seem even worse. In part, that is my feeling why war is stupid. It is the people who usually suffer the most, and the government which is rarely brought to justice for what they did. The trials for German war criminals were a rarity, so far as war goes.

It is the people who usually suffer the most, and the government which is rarely brought to justice for what they did. The trials for German war criminals were a rarity, so far as war goes.
There was actually sound historic reasons for doing this. Britain, France and others sought to punish Germany for WW1 and the Treaty of Versailles sought punitive reparations to be paid by Germany. These reparations in part paved the way for political instability, economic hardship and a feeling ot public discontent that directly resulted in the rise of the Nazis to power.
After the war, the Allies and the Russians were more interested in supporting and building up their respective Germanys as the front lines in the Cold War instead of seeking real 'justice'.
If you want a look at how truly awful war can be, have a look at descriptions of WW1 battlefields. How can one have a battle where 150,000 men are killed in one day? The Battle of the Somme and Ypres were like a Hiroshima a day for a week.

let me put in a little info on the whole atomic bomb thing...

for those of you who don't know, Japan is well known for not surrendering under any circumstances, so a huge show of power was needed to make them surrender and for the war to end. at this time in history the atomic bomb was still a "concept" and had never been tested in uncontrolled environments so no one knew what it could do, or if it would even work. We also only had 2 bombs at the time, and if you ever see pictures you'll notice they look completely different because both were test bombs.

some people argue that we should have dropped 1 of the bombs on a deserted island as a show of "what we're capable of" but remember, we don't even know if these bombs work... so what happens if we drop the bomb on this little island and it doesn't work? the Japanese would have laughed and the war would have continued for many years probably and more Americans would have died in the war, and more money would have been spent to pay for the war materials.

so that left only one option, to drop the bombs on Japan itself. when you look at it we were acctually conciderate in a way because we didn't drop the bombs on the capital or any historically famous cities, we chose 2 cities with large military forces. also after the first bomb was dropped we gave them 3 days to surrender before we dropped the second one.

so really when I see that I don't get upset... no I don't believe in nuclear war, no I don't beleive in war in general really(especially the whole I-busch-R-is-A-gay-Q thing) and I'm not insensitive to human life or anything like that... but its done, it doesn't affect me at all, and there was atleast decent reasoning for it... sooooo I'm done.

I agree, War is War, I cannot sit here and feel sorry for the enemy, do you think that they are sitting at their comps feeling bad for all the POWs they murdered in Cold Blood.

yea and what about the baton death march? they took americans 55 miles on foot with little to no food and water and very little rest... I don't remember the number of deaths but it was a lot... oh well its over, don't worry about it

but remember, we don't even know if these bombs work... so what happens if we drop the bomb on this little island and it doesn't work?
I'm sure we knew it was going to be big but did we know it was going to be that big? Notice no one has done anything like that since then.

The atom bomb was tested prior to deployment. And has been, quite extensively, since then.

I agree, War is War, I cannot sit here and feel sorry for the enemy, do you think that they are sitting at their comps feeling bad for all the POWs they murdered in Cold Blood.Some things transcend war, political boundaries, and nationalism. Humanity is one of them. Regardless of whether or not "the enemy" feels sorry for you, one has an obligation to forgive. In fact, I remember watching a National Geographic special in which Japanese veterans were attempting to enter into a dialogue with American veterans. "The enemy" can forget. I think we should too.

And this isn't to ignore Japan's brutality during the war. Kudos to YogsVR4. Sure, America had the "moral cause" in the war. But one has an obligation to forgive. Especially those not alive during the war.

~

It is particularly tragic that the Japanese government did not have the sense to surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima. They refused to give up because of their own conceit, and the unfortunate consequence was the death of tens of thousands more people in Nagasaki.

We learn history so as to come out on top with the knowledge, victories, and tragedies of the millenia of human existence as a factor in our actions. World War II sucked, World War I sucked, war sucks. Let us not hate the people, but rather the causes of the division. Just a reminder.